


Summer Pornathon Bonus Challenge 6!!

by FaeryQueen07



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Grieving, M/M, Minor Character Death, assumed death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-07
Updated: 2010-08-07
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1187421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaeryQueen07/pseuds/FaeryQueen07





	Summer Pornathon Bonus Challenge 6!!

Arthur finds the box at the worst time possible. The downstairs is just beginning to fill and Morgana will be looking for him any moment, but Arthur feels compelled to open it. He can hear footsteps coming down the hall and for just a moment, he considers putting the box away, waiting until this nightmare is over, but he can’t. He glances up when Leon slips into the room and nods when the door is locked behind.

“You shouldn’t—”

Arthur silences him a hard glare, deliberately flipping the lid off the small box in his hand. When he glances down, his brows furrow and his lips quirk in a near-smile. He isn’t sure what it was he expected to find, but this collection of mixtapes certainly isn’t it. And they are mix _tapes_. Literally.

He picks up the first one and laughs softly, his chest constricting painfully as he blinks back the tears threatening to fall. There are a list of extremely cheesy songs, including some by the notorious boy-band, New Kids on the Block and he vaguely remembers Merlin dancing around the room to their music when they were just twelve, limbs akimbo, face lit up with delight. On the cover is one of the pictures they had taken in one of the photobooths at a mall. He remembers that day fondly as well, because it had been his birthday.

There is another tape, made when Arthur got the chicken pox at age fourteen. He had been sullen and tearful until the moment Merlin had climbed through his bedroom window, mixtape gripped between his teeth and a bottle of calamine lotion in one hand. They had spent the whole night listening to the tape and four days later, Merlin had spots as well.

There is one from Arthur’s sixteenth birthday, one from when his father forced him to go away to summer camp and one for their first kiss. Arthur spends the most time looking at that one, the cover littered with Merlin’s sketches of dragons and knights and damsels in distress that bear a striking resemblance to Merlin himself.

It is as he is clearing away the bits of paper and loose pictures that Arthur encounters the DVD and he’s somewhat surprised that it’s in the box. It’s much newer than anything else, and the cover is suspiciously blank. For a moment, Arthur thinks that perhaps Merlin managed to copy one of their bedroom adventures and he’s almost inclined to throw it back into the box, to pretend he never saw it, but Arthur is a sucker for pain and misery, so instead, he pries open the case and pulls out the disc.

The label has only artist names on it, not the song titles, but he knows, _knows_ what he is going to find when he reaches out to pop it into Merlin’s DVD player.

The bed dips and Arthur glances over to see Leon, face pinched with worry. He doesn’t try to stop Arthur, though, simply makes his presence known.

“You won’t like what’s on there,” he says, and while Arthur is inclined to agree with him, but it’s too late to turn back.

The first song that comes on actually makes Arthur smile. It’s what they call a golden oldie; Deniece Williams’ Silly fills the room and Arthur lets himself sink into the song. The next one is strange and though he knows the woman is singing about the literature classic, Arthur is hard pressed to understand just why the song is on the DVD. Then Blink 182 comes on – Arthur recalls, with vivid detail, Merlin’s obsession with the band when they were fifteen – and he finally gets it. These songs are about them.

He lets his gaze slide away from the screen, glances down at the plastic case in his hand and realizes with a start that the song titles are listed where the DVD had been. He only has to read it once to understand that the DVD he was watching was a musical documentation of all the fall-outs they had had, both as friends and as lovers. Two are like a punch to the gut, and Arthur can feel of the stinging burn of hot tears sliding down his cheeks, unchecked.

“You loved him.”

Leon’s voice drags Arthur back to the present and he hurls the case away from him, though he makes certain it doesn’t strike anything that will cause it to break.

“I never loved him enough, though. And now—now he’s not even here to chastise me for it.”

Leon sighs, closing his eyes to Arthur’s grief and pain.

“He knew the risks in taking that assignment. He di—he died doing something he loved, but Arthur, you have to know, had he been able to foresee what would happen, he never would have gone.”

“Yes, he would have. God, Leon, just two days before he left, I broke up with him.” Arthur’s laugh is brittle, painful for Leon to hear, but he won’t leave his friend alone at a time like this. “We were always breaking up. Sometimes it was him, sometimes it was me. But this time...” He shudders and his gaze returns to the television where Cyndi Lauper is lamenting a relationship lost. “I told him it was over for good. That I was going to marry someone else, that it wasn’t worth the stress to maintain a gay relationship in a society that looked down on us.”

Leon flinches without meaning to. He can see in his mind’s eye how Merlin would have reacted to such a statement. He would have been distraught, would have gone to the separate bedroom he kept for appearances only and grabbed a sweatshirt before running off to his friend Gwen. And then he would done what he did _every_ time they broke up. He would have called his editor and demanded an assignment that would take him far away from all things Arthur. This time, there would be no heartwarming reunion.

“I can’t—I can’t believe he’s just _gone_!” Arthur is still staring at the television, watching as Brian McKnight called his love even as his plane hurtled towards the ground, his death imminent.

There is a knock and Leon gets up to chase whoever it is away, only to find Morgana on the other side of the door. She’s far too pale and her cheeks have hollowed out in the two weeks it has been since they received the devastating news. Leon lets her in without a word, wrapping his arms around her.

She allows it for a minute, perhaps two, then she’s crossing the room to where Arthur has curled up on the bed – on _Merlin’s_ rarely used bed – with a worn piece of paper clutched in his hands. She climbs up behind him and curls herself around his body, pressing her tear-streaked cheek to the back of his neck.

“Oh _god_ , Arthur,” she sobs, and the sound of her voice, so broke, so _shattered_ has Arthur crying against his will. “I miss him. I miss him so bloody _much_ it _hurts_.”

And he doesn’t doubt that, because of all their friends, Morgana came second to Arthur in Merlin’s affections. They had become thick as thieves when they realized how similar they were, that they shared a gift Arthur could never understand, not like they could, and would forever be in awe of.

He doesn’t say anything; he’s too wrung out by his grief to form a response. Sinead O’Conner’s devastatingly sad voice fills the room and Arthur is suddenly gasping for breath because he understands now, how desperately Merlin had wanted Arthur to change his mind, to decide they were worth all the extra effort, worth standing up to Uther Pendragon for. But Merlin is _gone_ , and there is no way to undo that. Arthur has already tried. He’s railed at Freya, Merlin’s usual companion on his stints abroad, the voice behind their pictures and videos of third world country devastation. He even denied the first three phone calls, the pictures of the ruined building Merlin had ducked into just minutes before the bomb had gone off.

Arthur has been torturing himself for the week it’s been since the bombing, wondering if Merlin survived the explosion, only to die slowly, trapped beneath the rubble, air slowly running out. He’s thought up every worse-case scenario, and has then told himself that Merlin had always deserved better.

The door opens again and the bed dips some more, with Gwen lying down at Arthur’s front, Lance tucked behind her and Leon wrapped around Morgana. They shouldn’t all be able to fit on the double bed, but they do, and Arthur is thankful for it, because he doesn’t see how can ever hope to get through this alone, knows he will not survive this loss if he’s forced to face it on his own.

~ * ~*~ * ~*~ * ~

When Arthur wakes, he’s alone on the bed, though someone is sitting in the chair by the desk, an arm’s length away. He has half a mind to tell them to leave, but then he remembers and he finds he’s not so anxious to be alone anymore. Instead, he closes his eyes, wills them to let him lie there in silence a little longer, and breathes in deeply, because Merlin’s scent is still on the pillow.

“I just—” The speaker stops short, but it’s too late because Arthur is anything but stupid, would know that voice anywhere, and he shoots upright, throat closing around his cry of surprise.

They stare at each for a long moment, Merlin dirty-faced, with bandages on his hands and neck and face – and probably all over the rest him, neatly hidden away by the baggy clothes he’s wearing – and Arthur, wide-eyed and too stunned to even speak.

“You’re dead,” he croaks at last.

Merlin laughs and _god_ , how Arthur has missed that sound. Has missed everything. He cannot believe he was stupid enough to turn his back on _any_ of it.

“I should be, by all rights, but my—” He stops, swallowing hard before continuing. “My _gift_ kept me safe, kept the pillar that had me pinned from collapsing completely. It took them three days to pull me free.”

Merlin looks away and Arthur can see the guilt shadowing his features. He recalls, then, that there had been a third member of Merlin’s team with him at the site and like that, he knows, understands what Merlin is feeling and why, and even though he wants to reach out, wants to yank Merlin to him and make certain that he’s real and not some apparition, he manages to hold himself still.

“Will.”

Merlin nods jerkily. “He pushed me out of the way when the first wall came down. By the time I realized it was a bomb that had gone off, it was already too late.”

“They said you were dead.”

Merlin looks ready to cry, looks _broken_. “Will...he was—he was wearing my jacket. It had my ID in the pocket, but half of it had melted. They just assumed he was me.”

And Arthur can’t hold back anymore because Merlin is _right fucking there_ and not an hour ago, Arthur had believed him dead. He reaches out with one hand, grips Merlin’s wrist and tugs him gently from the chair to the bed, pulls Merlin into the shelter of his arms.

“I thought you were gone from me for good, and god, Merlin, I wanted to die. I don’t think I’ve been able to even _breathe_ properly since I got the phone call.”

“I thought it was final, that there wasn’t going to be anymore us and I needed to get away. But when—after the first—you know...” His throat worked convulsively for a moment, the words tangling over one another on his tongue. “He was next to me the whole time. It was so horrible and I promised myself that if I got out of there alive, I would come straight back to you. That I would content myself with our relationship being a secret from your father, that I would support you if ended up marrying to please him.”

“I was such an idiot, Merlin. Never, _never_ , content yourself with anything less than what you deserve.”

Merlin chokes on a laugh that was least half a sob. “And what do I deserve?”

“Everything,” Arthur whispers, pulling him closer even while remaining mindful of Merlin’s battered body. “You deserve _everything_ because you’re worth it. You’re worth a hundred of my father, worth flying all the way to America so we can get married in style somewhere.”

And it’s so good to hear Merlin’s laughter.

They lie back on the bed, Merlin twining his long limbs around Arthur’s body, tucking his head under Arthur’s chin, and let the silence settle around them, comfortable and relaxed. It’s only as they’re drifting off to sleep that Arthur thinks of the others.

“Morgana—”

“Later, Arthur. We can call her in the morning, but right now, the only place I want to be is here, just you and me. I didn’t think I’d get this chance ever again.”

Arthur shudders, closing his eyes tight against the burn of tears. He’s shed enough of those in the last seven days that denying them now is okay.

“I love you,” he whispers into the silence.

“I know. I love you too. Even when you’re being a giant prat.”

“Yes,” Arthur agrees. “You even used Sinead O’Conner to say so.”

Merlin doesn’t make a sound, but his whole body shakes with silent laughter. “I can’t believe you listened to that CD,” he says at last, when he’s calmed down enough to talk.

“I wanted to hurt, wanted to be reminded that the only reason I had lost you was because I was such a fool.”

“We’ve both caused our fair share of hurt. You weren’t the only to distance yourself when things got tough.”

But Arthur doesn’t want to dwell on that, doesn’t want to remember the bad things. So he presses himself closer to Merlin, slides one hand down his back so he tuck his fingers inside the waistband of Merlin’s ridiculously over-large jeans and curl them over the sharp jut of Merlin’s hipbone.

“Never leave me again,” Arthur begs, voice thick with emotion. “Never let me push you away like that. I won’t survive. I could not – _would_ not – bear it.

“Shh.”

Arthur sighs, allowing the steady combing of Merlin’s fingers through his hair to lull him to sleep. In the morning, he will call his father, tell him about Merlin and how Arthur will never give him up, not even to Death. And while he’s doing that, Merlin can call their friends, can reunite with Morgana and bring the laughter back into their lives, wash away their tears.

Arthur’s last thought as he drifts off to sleep is that Merlin will probably hold him to the promise of a real wedding, and honestly, that’s just fine by Arthur.

 

The Mixtape:

[Denise Williams, Silly](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcPiip-xkyw)  
[Squeeze, Heaven Knows](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGHvsHuJFeE)  
[Macy Gray, I Try](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsTk2xp0nvY)  
[Whitney Houston, I Will Always Love You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19rC-Fl-KwM)  
[Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQY7BusJNU&feature=av2e)  
[Janet Jackson, Again](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96hmKX3Hd7c)  
[Enrique Inglesias - Be With You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnRe56FcfnY)  
[Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTs-Wa9lB0Q)  
[Blink 182, I Miss You](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY&feature=av2e)  
[Sinead O’Conner, Nothing Compares 2 U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0)  
[Brian McKnight, Back at One](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Im5XeLbHy8)


End file.
